Mar 20 Facial financial

Samsung’s new Galaxy S8 smartphone, which will be unveiled some time this month will boast fingerprint, iris and facial recognition features to authenticate users. In addition, the company is partnering with banks to support them with facial recognition tech that might be hooked up to Samsung Pay.

Earlier Galaxy devices enabled owners to unlock their handsets via facial recognition, but the S8 would be the first to use it to facilitate financial payment.

Mainstream adoption of smartphone biometrics will act as a catalyst for the deployment of biometric sensors elsewhere, reckons Deloitte Global. For example, finger vein and palm vein scanners using near-infrared light to ID a person’s vein structure can be integrated into ATMs as an alternative to PIN entry. Schools could use vein scanners to authenticate access to buildings, while the technology could be used by students to check in and out of classes, or to pay for food.

Billions of new smartphones and tablets will this year be capable of processing multiple types of biometric inputs. However, there are challenges. Voice recognition technology may struggle when used in noisy locales, while facial recognition may require similar lighting conditions to those in which reference images were taken, otherwise false negatives are likely.